I actually saw the following in a response to a recent Raw Story article (on a leaked Justice Department memo in regards to the ongoing scandal about how the NSA may have illegally spied on US nationals with the President's consent and used warantless wiretaps--reportedly, the Justice Department will be defending the President) and, well...it's piqued my interest, to put it mildly.

Namely--at least according to this blogger--it may theoretically be consitutionally possible to have impeachment proceedings begin without the House Judiciary Committee voting for it, specifically, by a state government calling for impeachment:

The House rules permit state resolutions on Presidential and VicePresidential impeachments. This approach would bypass the RNCcontrolled House Judiciary Committee.

Whilst this approach has apparently never been legally tested (as only two impeachments of a President have ever occured in US history, and there have only been a very few other cases of impeachment of government officials on a Federal level--all of which have been initiated by Congressional committees) the blogger in question does seem to have done his research. Apparently, per the rules of procedure in the House,

In the House there are various methods of setting an impeachment inmotion: by charges made on the floor on the responsibility of a Memberor Delegate (II, 1303; III, 2342, 2400, 2469; VI, 525, 526, 528, 535,536); by charges preferred by a memorial, which is usually referred to acommittee for examination (III, 2364, 2491, 2494, 2496, 2499, 2515; VI,543); by a resolution dropped in the hopper by a Member and referred toa committee (Apr. 15, 1970, p. 11941; Oct. 23, 1973, p. 34873); by amessage from the President (III, 2294, 2319; VI, 498); by chargestransmitted from the legislature of a State (III, 2469) or territory(III, 2487) or from a grand jury (III, 2488); or from facts developedand reported by an investigating committee of the House (III, 2399,2444).

These would match up with House rules as archived by Cornell University (one of the major repositories of online law archives) as well as via the government's own archive of rules of impeachment in use by the 106th Congress.

In other words, technically an impeachment proceeding against the President can begin by a state legislature passing a resolution calling for the President of the United States--or any other federal official--to be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Again, this has never to my knowledge been legally tested and I am not a lawyer, but it is a very interesting possibility to remove dominionists from office--especially as quite a few "pander-bears" to the dominionist movement have in fact been indicted in regards to the Abramoff scandal (an ever-increasing list of people connected has already lead to the loss of two positions in Congressional committees and a change to the Speaker of the House), and there is increasing evidence that a large number of Republican senators--several of whom are connected to the Abramoff scandal (which has already made links, among other things, to multiple head figures of the dominionist community and a dominionist 501(c)3 DeLay ran (the investigation surrounding which began the whole shebang in the first place))--are also connected to a possible day trading scam. (Whilst technically Senators and Congressmen are *technically* safe from impeachment, if they are in the line of succession to the Presidency they can likely be impeached upon their succession. Also, if they are convicted in a regular court of a crime they can technically be removed from office.)

Also, if needed, theoretically Supreme Court justices and other federal officials tied to dominionism could theoretically be impeached. (Again, the one exception is *probably* Congressmen, but House and Senate rules provide for the expulsion of Congresscritters from their office upon conviction of a serious crime.)

Very interestingly, one potential ground that the President may be impeachable on is the crime of treason, according to some experts; more likely, a possible charge is violation of the oath of office (failure to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the US, and in many cases, deliberate attempts to subvert them or break them).

Also--of special note--according to the published rules of the House, an impeachment proceeding would trump all other business up to and including the voting on Alito to the Supreme Court.

One of the best parts of this is that--if one state passes a resolution calling for impeachment and gives it to the House--technically the House's business goes to a dead stop until they vote to support the charges, support the charges in part, or vote there are no grounds for impeachment--and likely, voting there are "no grounds for impeachment" would be political suicide.
Even more interestingly, technically the government passing an impeachment resolution doesn't even have to be a state. Technically, a territory--such as Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the North Mariana Islands, American Samoa, etc.--could pass the resolution *even though their representatives are not voting members of Congress* and technically the House *still* has to act on it. The nonvoting rep for the District of Columbia could also pass a similar resolution if the city commission passes it, and DC could launch an impeachment proceeding. (It's rather more up in the air for areas that are "quasi-territories" of the US--like the Federated States of Micronesia--that are in "free association" with the US for most of their affairs but are usually considered independent.)

Now, I'll be honest. Most of me is inclined to take this with a bit of salt...but I'm having problems finding flaws in the strategy he's taking (at least as far as *getting the dominionists out of office*). It also might be worth looking into *state* impeachment rules, too.

Comments?